Lapdog journalism at the NY Times

God, how I do so hate reading the pablum that passes for UFO coverage in The New York Times. Had a link to its latest trifling not appeared on a Facebook post over the weekend, I might’ve been lucky enough to have missed the thing altogether. The headline – “Bright Lights, Strange Shapes and Talk of U.F.O.’s” – should’ve been sufficient warning to take a pass. But NOOOO. De Void just had to click and see and hope against hope that just once The Gray Lady might serve up an original recipe on The Great Taboo. Just once. Please.

It’s almost as if The New York Times is actively celebrating its worthlessness to a potential audience of millions/CREDIT: technocrazed.com

So now the question I’m asking myself is why? Why did I do that? Which particular character flaw drove me to click onto something whose outcome was as preordained as a Wile E. Coyote canyon disaster? I want to blame it on something beyond my control, e.g., the rush of communications technologies currently reducing civilization’s attention span to a debris field of autonomic impulses. But the inner voice tells me to man up, to take responsibility and own it.

De Void refuses, however, to link to this banality. That would be wrong. Likewise, De Void declines to rain on reporter Jonah Bromwich because maybe it wasn’t his idea. Maybe it got dropped on his plate by a harried editor who needed to plug a hole quickly and reached for the first thing in the pile. In this case, it was the Nov. 7 sub-launched missile test off the nighttime coast of California. Lots of surprised people posted dramatic footage, which prompted CNN to lead its next-day coverage this way: “Panic and speculation spread Saturday night when a bright white light shot through the night skies in Southern California …”

When I think of panic, I tend to think of people trampling each other to get away from gunfire and explosions, or diving out of skyscrapers to escape roaring flames, but whatever, if CNN says panic, it must’ve been true. CNN also mentioned how the launch triggered “theories of aliens,” as did countless other newsgatherers. Anyhow, five days later, here comes the nation’s unofficial paper of record, bringing up the rear with this lead: “When strange things appear in the sky, many people can’t help but turn their thoughts to extraterrestrials. But there’s usually a more down-to-earth explanation.”

A lead like this makes De Void practically vomit with excitement.

Bromwich goes on to reassure readers that we’ve simply been conditioned to attribute murky lights in the sky to space aliens, thanks to cultural cues like “Close Encounters” and “The X-Files.” Which is refreshing; nobody’s ever heard that explanation before. Then he gives the final say to Skeptic magazine publisher Michael Shermer: “In a way, extraterrestrials are like deities for atheists. They’re always described as these vastly superior, almost omnipotent beings coming down from on high, very much like the Christ story, or the Mormon story or the Scientology story.”

This is a tired and tiresome complaint, but the longer the Times keeps covering UFOs this way, the more exposed its amateurish vulnerabilities on this topic become. Maybe it’s part of the enduring legacy of its late iconic science reporter Walter Sullivan. In 1969, Sullivan wrote the laudatory introduction to the so-called Condon Report, the seriously flawed government-funded analysis that sounded the death knell for critical institutional thinking on UFOs. Try to imagine the prestigious Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism going to reporters investigating an issue he attempted to lay to rest half a century ago.

Descendants of that storied tradition, Bromwich and/or his editor are just wasting space and undercutting the Times’ reputation as All The News That’s Fit To Print. Of course it would never occur to them to raise questions about why U.S. Customs and Border Protection is stonewalling efforts to authenticate UFO footage it shot with its own camera, or to press the Federal Aviation Administration on why it began exempting raw radar records from FOIA requests nearly a decade after 9/11 allegedly changed everything. But it does make you wonder how long they can afford to ignore the numbers. Google “UFO” and 86.5 million returns pop up. For readers looking for an intelligent forum on The Great Taboo, The New York Times isn’t even embarrassing. It’s irrelevant.

As an addendum IMO that if the sighting was anything more than an benign anomaly the photos would never be released to MSM. The true investigative reporters would be required to jump through hoops to obtain further info per the bureaucracy as set forth in the FOIA.

In continuation of the MSM and MS Science POV’s on this blog
The link below is an orchestrated set up with MS Science and a (complicit) MSM

Be willing to bet that the astronaut, Scott Kelly, and other science officials already know that the “USO”(per snickering Fox news media staff) “I mean UFO” has a prosaic origin. Neither institutional group will divulge the origin until a soon to be determined date.
Thus a further effort to ridicule, mold and educate the public at large that “One must not quickly jump to conclusions on UAP subject” because our elite scientists know all- and that mankind must gradually become to understand that there is really no evidence of either ETH or of a phenomena with a possible paranormal component.

@freeman,
After years of top down “training and debunking” (a phrase straight out of the Robertson Panel playbook), there doesn’t need to be a conspiracy. Newsroom reporters can be indoctrinated and socialized in the workplace just like everyone else. The taboo eventually becomes internalized, another box one must not think outside of.
…The training, debunking and atmosphere of ridicule had to start with the press in order to be propagated among the public. Back in the 50’s there were reporters, editors, even publishers, who worked with the intelligence services during WW2…some as censors and propagandists! Many maintained their close relationships with various intelligence and military agencies. They had no problem instituting the tactics recommended by the Robertson Panel (a panel brought together and given its mandate by the CIA.) Misdirection and ridicule were the assignment.
…Back then it could’ve reasonably been called a conspiracy.
Today?… Ingrained complacency, ingrained cynicism, ingrained fear of ridicule and/or loss of employment, careerism….plus the pressures of working for an institution that is increasingly becoming irrelevant.

Bill Pilgrim nailed it. The pseudo-liberal MSM _is_ a megaphone for gov/mil pronouncements, and I might add ‘on ALL subjects’. Even if you don’t give a RSA about UFOs, the damage done to our nation is incalculable. Nowadays, real investigative reporting is done only by small media outlets, viewed only by a small number of people. As long as they are marginalized, the Big Boys are happy. However, there is a tipping point, past which actual censorship occurs. This is old news to that minority familiar with the establishment of fascist states.
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“…The Air Force explanations are a joke and I paid little attention to them…” – Gross. Again I ask, why did the AF stop trying to find even remotely reasonable explanations?
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One thing you’ll never hear is “We have no explanation for this.”
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@Bill: I haven’t read the Missing Times, but when the Condon wrote his summary and the Robertson Panel delivered its verdict, it was only too easy for the MSM to accept their findings as ‘expert testimony’. Today the media has the ‘poses no threat to national security’ quote to fall back on and a library of images of people in fancy dress; sprinkle in a tendency to promote obvious missile tests as a widespread UFO panic and ta-dah, job done, salary earned. No extra thought or investigation necessary.
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There’s a whole ‘return-on-investment’ issue to be investigated in regard to an individual’s approach to ufology. I had the recent opportunity to attend a brief intro to autism and it struck me that the brain’s reward system (carrots & sticks) may impact an individual’s proclivity towards ‘exploration & discovery’ to a significant degree. (Apparently there’s even a difference between exploration in pursuit of an outcome and exploration as its own reward.)
Just saying that peoples’ attitude towards fringe topics may be a function of their ‘learning style’ and not necessarily the result of conspiracy or informed opinion.

…While the sniping (micro-aggression?) shall go on here, the late Terry Hansen – The Missing Times. News Media Complicity in the UFO Coverup – pretty much nailed when, why and how the Grey Lady became simply a megaphone for government declarations and propaganda on the subject. Intelligence agencies and the Air Force wanted the subject marginalized. The elite media obliged.
…Sour grapes? Hogwash! We should take every opportunity to denounce the mainstream media for their cowardice and refusal to take responsibility for participating in a colossal coverup. It was probably reasoned back then that if the elite news media – the national ‘framers’ – could be turned, regional and local outlets would follow suit. Worked like a charm.

Keeping my comment polite, I would argue that elements of the mainstream media have become culturally conditioned to report a certain class of incidents using a certain tone.
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The Wile E Coyote analogy fits the MSM: an entity that thinks it knows what it’s doing, but is laughably, sadly in error.

Billy, you were interesting when I came on the scene six years ago, but you’ve been writing the same whiny “great taboo” column the last few years. You are succumbing to Friedman Regurgitation Syndrome.

You are young enough to recapture your former goodness. But you have to want it.

As somebody who investigated several UFO sightings in the southwest during my career as a reporter, (and disappointingly failed to turn up any evidence of the paranormal or aliens) I can say, with a high degree of confidence, that Bromwich turned in what we used to call a “hatchet job” on the subject of UFO’s. This doesn’t surprise me too much, as while I was covering the Navajo Nation in the mid-1990’s, the WSJ published an article making the Navajos look like superstitious fools for objecting to the name of what was then Highway 666. The quotes, it turned out, were largely made up.

@Billy,
Looks like the NYT is aping the FOX news ‘we show -both- sides’ syndrome, by presenting Skeptic BS from a totally unqualified ‘expert’
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Here’s something on Mike Shermer: “…Dr. Shermer received his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University, M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton, and his Ph.D. in the history of science…” – Skeptic magazine.
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He manages to insult Christians, Mormons, and Scientologists, but apparently forgot Moses and Mohammed, an over sight, I’m sure. An example of what folks with useless degrees can to to make living, in addition to writing books like; “The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom.” (Is this something that already happened and I missed it? Maybe it’s a prediction? Good luck with that.)
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It was probably a good idea to avoid offending Jews and Muslims, but the Scientologists?. They have armies of lawyers 🙂
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I’d be interested to know the relationship between Bromwich and Shermer. Did B find S in a Google search? Maybe he used ‘Dial a Sceptic’. We know they came together somehow.
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